1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of article location and more particularly to locating computing devices within a computing environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
The modern computing environment often can be characterized by computing equipment disposed in an environmentally sound room where computing equipment can be arranged for use by end users in a production capacity, or for testing in a manufacturing capacity. The test environment for computing in manufacturing can be compared to the production environment of the data center in which an assembly area for computing equipment terminates broadband access for a computer communications network. In the latter circumstance, computing racks can be provided, with each rack typically housing several computing components on different shelves or slots defined by the rack. In both the production environment and the manufacturing environment, however, the optimization and organization of space can be very important.
In as much as computing components can be visually obscured within the manufacturing environment and the production environment of the data center where space is at a premium or practically obscured amongst many different components, tracking the location of each computing component can be a daunting, albeit necessary task. Specifically, when access to a particular computing component is required, for example in consequence of an alarm emitted by a failing computing component, a system administrator must be able to locate the failing computing component quickly. Likewise, oftentimes a selection of components in a rack are to be removed for maintenance, however, knowing which of the components in the rack are to be removed can be difficult where there are many components in the rack.
To facilitate the monitoring and management of rack mounted computing components, system management software can be deployed for use by system administrators. Whereas system management software can monitor components and alert system administrators to impending failure conditions in rack mounted computing components, system management software cannot readily locate the isolated equipment lacking network connectivity as is often the case especially in the manufacturing environment.
At present, systems administrators locate computing components in the manufacturing environment and in the production environment through manual bar coding schemes and companion databases in which bar code scans of bar codes affixed to components can be matched to a database indicating a physical location of the components in the data center. Recognizing the manual intensive nature of bar coding components, other systems administrators embed an electrical memory within each component in a rack enclosure, each memory storing identification data for the component. The rack enclosure, in turn, can incorporate complementary sensors such that the enclosure can query a proximate component to retrieve the identification data. In consequence, an end user can provide search terms through a user interface to the rack enclosure and an indicator light can illuminate near a component matching the user query.
As is often the case, within the manufacturing environment locating a specific computing device under test can be of paramount importance. For example, often a computing device must be located due to a quality hold for like products, or for emergency expedition resulting from special customer needs. Oftentimes, not just a single computing device, but an entire class of computing devices sharing similar characteristics must be located for action in the manufacturing environment or even in the production environment. In this case, at present the computing devices for the class must be located only on an individual basis and usually through manual efforts as in the manufacturing environment, the computing devices all too frequently lack power, a user interface, or network connectivity.